This invention relates particularly to machines for collating webs of flexible paper material.
Such machines are employed for assembling a plurality of webs of flexible material, fastening the webs together along marginal edge portions. Usually the webs are preprinted paper forms and interleaved carbon paper webs which together construct continuous severable sets of business forms. Rolls of carbon (where used) and preprinted paper are mounted on horizontal arbors and the end of each roll is fed around a series of idler rods and tension bars to a main feed cylinder or cylinders where the webs are collected. Examples of such collators are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,303,083 and No. 3,682,468.
An increasing demand for business forms, coupled with general rising costs of doing business, has resulted in a need for a collating machine which is economical in both cost and operation. The number of forms produced per unit time is a factor in operating costs, and so to reduce the operating costs, the machine should perform with minimum down time, for example, by reducing time for loading the paper and for carbon webs in the machine.
A machine capable of handling large rolls of webs is more economical to operate in that it can require less down time to replace the rolls, but use of larger rolls generally requires separate feeding mechanism, as well as equipment to lift and load the heavier larger rolls, all of which add to manufacturing expense. Conversely, a compact machine which handles relatively small feed rolls can be relatively less expensive to build, but requires frequent roll changes and the consequential down time can result in high operating costs. On the other hand, the size and weight of larger rolls is such that they cannot be lifted or moved without mechanical assistance, and in general lifting and transporting mechanisms tend to be complicated and expensive.
While devices are known for handling heavy coils or rolls of material, such as aluminum and steel strip, or for use in rewinding or slitting larger rolls of material, their use in a collating machine to handle larger paper rolls would make the cost of the collating machine prohibitive both in terms of initial cost and operating cost. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,077,317 and No. 3,345,014 disclose cart-like devices movable in a horizontal plane and having a hydraulic elevator incorporated therein, which lift a heavy coil from a mandrel on which the coil is wound and transport the coil away from the mandrel. Such elevator carts might appear to be useful to move a roll of paper toward a supply arbor on a collator, but such a device and its necessary support equipment would greatly increase the cost of the collator.
Accurate alignment is important when working with the larger heavier rolls, where the most convenient supply arbor is a cantilever type, and the roll must be slid or moved horizontally onto the arbor. The alignment between the mandrel or arbor and the opening in the roll core must be such that friction is minimized during sliding the roll on the arbor. Core damage may cause even greater effort and time in pushing the roll onto the arbor, but if the apparatus has some means for quickly making fine adjustments in the axial alignment of the arbor and/or the roll, time loss can be minimized.